A prayer by Dr. Jane Goodall

We had our board retreat yesterday, a lovely time of fellowship, conversation, and renewal.

In particular, I was moved by the opening prayer, by Dr. Jane Goodall, which we spoke together, and I thought I would share it with our blogging community:

We pray to the great Spiritual Power in which
we live and move and have our being.
We pray that we may at all times
keep our minds open to new ideas and shun dogma;
that we may grow n our understanding of the nature of all living beings
and our connectedness with the natural world;
that we may become ever more filled with
generosity of spirit and true compassion and love for all life;
that we may strive to heal the hurts that we have inflicted on nature
and control our greed for material things, knowing that
our actions are harming our natural world and the future of our children;
that we may calue each and every human being
for who he is, for who she is,
reaching to the spirit that is within,
knowing the power of each individual to change the world.

We pray for social justice,
for the alleviation of the crippling poverty
that condemns millions of people around the world
to lives of misery - hungry, sick, and utterly without hope.
We pray for the children who are starving,
who are condemned to homelessness, slave labor, and prostitution.
We pray for the victims of violence and war,
for those wounded in body and for those wounded in mind.

We pray for these things with humility;
we pray because of the hope that is within us,
and because of a faith in the ultimate triumph of the human spirit;
We pray because of our love for Creation, and because of our trust in God.

Amen.

Alison Killeen
Statewide Organizer